Stan Sakai wrote:September 15I finished the cover for Usagi Yojimbo Saga Book 4, which includes UY Book 17: The Duel at Kitanoji story arc. The original measures about 12.75x8.75 inches, a little bigger than what my scanner can handle, and is on 4-ply 500 series Strathmore bristol with ink and watercolors.
I did a pretty literal translation of UY #58, as colored by Tom Luth.
The pencils done with a .5 mm HB mechanical pencil. The top 1/5 (above the line) will be cropped for the trade paperback, but will be printed on the hardcover. I put a tokage lizard there to fill up the space. (I added a bat ninja on the cover of Book 3.)
I want the foreground to pop, so inked that with a Koh-i-noor ArtPen and Badger Black Opaque ink (old formula).
I masked the foreground, and started painting the background trees.
The bandit horde came next.
I removed the mask off the foreground tree and worked on that.
Derec Donovan wrote:have you had issues with the mask tearing the board when you remove it?- I've had it tear up little clumps of Bristol if its on too tight and I've had watercolor bleed under if its not-
I had a couple of tearing issues with UY Saga #3 that I posted last week. However, I think I covered it up pretty good so it is unnoticeable. It helps that my watercolor technique is pretty organic.
Once the tree was 90% done, I removed the mask on the figures.
The foreground figures and tree are worked on.
I added details to the horde and strengthened some of the shadows to give more definition, and done. This took about two days--one for pencils and inks, and the other for colors.
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